Monthly Archive: August 2016

It is no secret that the Sherlock fandom is officially known as the ‘fandom that waits’. With years between seasons that are only 3 episodes long and teasers thrown out by the show’s writers adding fuel to the fire, it comes as no surprise when fans begins to suffer from Sherlock withdrawal halfway through the waiting period. The only way to assuage the pain is to find something to distract your attention in the meanwhile. While nothing can replace the phenomenon that has become Sherlock, it is worth digging through a similar or distinctly different TV series to pass the time more quickly.

To begin your ultimate Sherlock-less binge-fest, we recommend you begin with Luther. Fans captivated by the morbid relationship between Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes will appreciate the cat-and-mouse game between John Luther, the policeman with loose morals and a bad-temper, and Alice Morgan, a psychopath. For fans who have been utterly courted by the dark side Peaky Blinders might be right up your alley with the anti-hero/villain, Tommy Shelby who is a gang leader, taking center stage in this period crime series.

A more in-depth look into the lives of detectives and a rare, accurate portrayal of a crime scene unit can be seen in the Danish series Dicte. For a milder look into the world of detective work and mystery, the Poirot series poses a more sophisticated approach, with less running around and more brain work. A more feminine approach to murder is pulled off in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, where Phryne Fisher finds herself swept away in homicidal adventures in the most stylish ways. While the series is entirely out of tune to anything remotely related to Sherlock, perhaps a good mystery with a chic woman is what people need. With the 2017 release of Sherlock still months away from broadcast, it would do the fandom some good to relax before once again facing the emotional roller coaster ride that has become Sherlock.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of state broke with Trump on the issue of nuclear proliferation today during the first of what's expected to be a two-day confirmation hearing. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, conducted the relevant questioning as Rex Tillerson appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "Mr. Tillerson, do you agree with President-elect Trump when he said, 'It wouldn't be a bad thing for us if Japan, South Korea or Saudi Arabia acquired nuclear weapons?'" Markey asked. "Senator, I don't think anyone advocates for more nuclear weapons on the planet," Tillerson replied. Markey pressed if Tillerson agreed with Trump that proliferation would not be a bad thing. "I do not agree," Tillerson said. "Senator, I think if confirmed, it is a vital, one of the vital roles for the State Department to play ... has to be the pursuit of nuclear nonproliferation," Tillerson continued. "We just simply cannot back away from our commitment to see a reduction in the number of these weapons on the planet." But Tillerson came to Trump's defense when asked about the president-elect's tweet saying the U.S. must "expand" its nuclear capability.

FBI Investigatigation

Explosive but unsubstantiated allegations suggesting Donald Trump was compromised by Russian agents and in league with Russian hackers appeared in a dossier given to the FBI in August by Democratic political operatives who later gave it to news organizations, including ABC News. The document has circulated in the intelligence community and was reportedly raised last week during classified intelligence briefings to President Obama and President-elect Trump. Trump and his aides expressed outrage yesterday that anyone would take the uncorroborated reports seriously. “FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” Trump wrote on Twitter, in an apparent reference to the news reports. On ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Trump aide Kellyanne Conway slammed the allegations, saying, “Just to smear the president-elect of the United States, we now have intelligence officials divulging information that they are sworn not to divulge.” “I don’t even think this is fake news, I think this is just fake. I would take the ‘news’ word right out of it,” she added. Meanwhile, in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also been critical of the allegations, saying, “It’s an absolute spoof story. It’s absolute fabrication. It’s complete nonsense.” Portions of the dossier outlining supposed ties between Trump’s team and Russian government agents started to surface over the summer based partly on information from a former British intelligence agent who was working for anti-Trump political operatives. The partisan operatives circulated portions of the documents to federal officials and reporters, including to ABC News, both before and after the 2016 election. Eventually, Republican Sen. John McCain received a copy and forwarded it directly to FBI Director James Comey. Comey was pressed during hearings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as to whether the FBI is investigating the allegations. He declined to answer, citing agency policy. But a senior official briefed on the case said the allegations were too serious to ignore. Among the claims are allegations that Trump was personally compromised by the Russians during a 2013 trip to Moscow and that Trump aides were later involved with the Russians’ hack of the Democratic Party. Some specific allegations have brought sharp denials. A Trump lawyer named in the report, Michael Cohen, called “laughably false” the assertion that his Ukrainian-born father-in-law had a dacha near Russian President Vladimir Putin’s. “I don’t even think my father-in-law has ever been to Moscow,” Cohen told ABC News. “I wonder who’s living in the dacha.” Another suggestion in the documents given to the FBI — that Cohen supposedly met with the Russians in Prague, Czech Republic, last August — is also false, he said. “I’ve never actually walked the land in Prague, and last August I was not in Prague,” he said. The dossier provides no back-up evidence, but the claims were hard to ignore, officials told ABC News. And the allegations gained currency in intelligence and law enforcement circles as Trump continued his unorthodox defense of Russian hacking and unrestrained praise of Putin. In May, Trump said he “respects Putin,” calling him “a strong leader.” And, despite the consensus of the nation’s top intelligence agencies, Trump has continued to question whether Russia had a hand in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers. “I don’t think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC,” he said at one point. David Kramer, a Russia expert who served as an assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, said he was “surprised by Mr. Trump’s public admiration for Mr. Putin.” “Generally Republicans have taken a harder line toward Russian aggression, toward Russian human rights abuses, toward any Russian efforts in interfering in other countries’ internal affairs,” Kramer said. “It is not generally consistent with what I myself have experienced and what I have seen from others, so it raises some questions in my mind about what’s driving it.”